Daf Ditty Shabbes 155: Foie Gras לָבֲא .ןיִטיִﬠְלַמ ןיִטְקְלַהְמוּ רַתַּל ןיִלוֹגְנְרתּלןְְְִַוּ.יטְִַ ֲָ “And one may force-feed chickens.” 1 MISHNA: One may untie peki’in of grain before an animal on Shabbat, and one may spread the kifin but not the zirin. These terms will be explained in the Gemara. One may not crush hay 2 or carobs before an animal on Shabbat in order to facilitate its eating. He may do so neither for a small animal [daka] nor for a large one. Rabbi Yehuda permits to do so with carobs for a small animal, because it can swallow the hard carobs only with difficulty. GEMARA: Rav Huna said: They are called peki’in and they are also called kifin. The difference between them is that peki’in are tied with two knots, whereas kifin are tied with three. Zirin, which may not be moved on Shabbat, are bundles of cedar branches eaten by animals when the branches are small and moist. And this is what the mishna is saying: One may untie peki’in of grain before an animal and spread them, and the same is true for kifin, but not for zirin, which one may neither spread nor untie. Rav Ḥisda said: What is the reason for the opinion of Rav Huna? He holds that with regard to exerting oneself with food on Shabbat, one may exert himself; however, with regard to rendering food edible, one may not render it so. Bundles of crops which are fit for animal consumption in their present state may be further prepared on Shabbat. Cedar branches cannot be eaten when bound together; therefore, one may not exert himself to untie them and render them edible on Shabbat. 3 Rav Yehuda understood the mishna differently and said: They are called peki’in and they are also called zirin. The difference between them is that peki’in are tied with two knots, whereas zirin are tied with three. Kifin are bundles of cedar branches. And this is what the mishna is saying: One may untie peki’in of grain before an animal; however, with regard to spreading them, no, he may not spread them. And with regard to kifin, one may also spread them. However, that is not the case with regard to zirin, as it is prohibited to spread them, and it is only permitted to untie them. Rava said: What is the reason for Rav Yehuda’s opinion? He holds the opposite of Rav Huna’s opinion. He holds that with regard to rendering food edible, one may render it so; however, with regard to exerting oneself on Shabbat with food that is already in an edible state, one may not exert himself. Our Daf’s discussion1 begins with a Mishnah that the rabbis find difficult to understand: One may untie peki’in of grain before an animal on Shabbat, and one may spread the kifin but not the zirin. One may not crush hay or carobs before an animal, neither for a small animal nor for a large one. Rabbi Yehuda permits to do so with carobs for a small animal. Half of these words are left untranslated because the rabbis themselves disagree about what they mean, but they seem to have something to do with how food is bundled — and how much work is required to open it up. The Talmud offers two interpretations of the Mishnah, one from Rav Huna and one from Rav Yehuda. The former thinks the underlying principle of this Mishnah is that one may exert oneself to lay food before the animal (untying bundles, etc.) but one may not take food that is inedible and render it edible — in other words, the food needs to be pre-prepared. The latter, in contrast, finds the opposite principle in this Mishnah: he thinks that one may render a food that is inedible to an animal edible (for instance, by mashing up carobs for a small animal), but one may not exert oneself to lay it out. These two perspectives on the Mishnah are gallantly argued back and forth with no definitive conclusion. This may feel all a bit arcane to those of us for whom animal feeding generally consists of scooping a cup of kibble and dumping it in a bowl, but the debate serves as a reminder that Shabbat requires us to balance guarding against work in order to create a day that is truly set aside, while still managing to live in the real world where both we and our animals receive proper care. 1 Myjewishlearning.org 4 MISHNA: One may not forcibly overfeed a camel on Shabbat and one may not force-feed it, even if in doing so he does not overfeed the camel. However, one may place food into its mouth. And the mishna makes a distinction, which will be explained in the Gemara, between two manners of placing food in the mouths of cattle. One may not place food in the mouths of calves on Shabbat in the manner of hamra’a, but one may do so in the manner of halata. And one may force-feed chickens. And one may add water to bran used as animal feed, but one may not knead the mixture. And one may not place water before bees or before doves in a dovecote, because they are capable of finding their own food; however, one may place water before geese and chickens and before hardisian [hardeisiyyot] doves. 5 GEMARA: We learned in the mishna that one may not forcibly overfeed a camel on Shabbat. The Gemara asks: What is meaning of: One may not forcibly overfeed? Rav Yehuda said: One may not feed a camel to the point that it creates a trough inside of its stomach. The Gemara asks: Is there the possibility of feeding a camel in that manner? The Gemara answers: Yes; and as Rav Yirmiya of Difti said: I saw an Arab who fed his camel a kor of food and loaded it with another kor on its back. Rav Yosef raised an objection from that which was taught in the Tosefta: One may force-feed [mehalketin] chickens, and needless to say, one may malkitin. And one may not malkitin doves in a dovecote or doves in an attic, and needless to say, one may not force-feed. The Gemara asks: What is mehalketin and what is malkitin? If you say that mehalketin means that one feeds the bird by hand and malkitin means that one throws the food before them, by inference, throwing food before doves in a dovecote or before doves in an attic is also not permitted. 6 But why would that be prohibited? RASHI RAMBAM: Hil Shabbes 21:35 We may not feed an animal, a wild animal or a bird on Shabbat in the way one feeds [it] on [weekdays], lest he comes to crushing legumes or kneading flour or that which is similar to it. How is that? One should not feed a camel three- or four-days’ food on Shabbat, nor should he make a calf crouch—or that which is similar to it—and open its mouth and put vetch and water into it at one time. Likewise, he should not [put food down] into the mouths of doves and chickens to a place where it cannot regurgitate. But rather he should feed the animal standing and give it drink standing, or place water into its mouth separately and vetch separately to a place where it can regurgitate. Likewise, he can feed fowl with his hand to a place where it can regurgitate. And there is no need to say that he may place [the feed] in front of them and [let] them eat. Shulchan Aruch: Orach Chayim 324:9 7 The Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh De’ah 33:9) Ramo op cit: And there are those that validate the animal if there is no bloodspot on the outside because we are not concerned that it might have [had a hole which] healed. And so too the custom is to be lenient in our cities by the geese which we overfeed to make fat, that there is a way to fix [the forbidden animal] in the city by checking after the gullet was punctured because we are more concerned for [the case of] the lungs sticking [to each other]. And our custom is to be lenient where the thorn is lodged in the gullet if there is no hole on both sides or if there is no bloodspot on the outside. And there are those who are very precise with 8 this because it is forbidden from the Torah; and it is much better to not check at all and rely on the majority [case] instead of checking and [needing to rely] on a leniency in a case where there is an imperfection. He says that in his town they would stuff geese to make schmaltz and that a perforated veshet was common; the goose was permitted only after the veshet was checked. On the other hand, the early 17th-century Bach (Yoreh De’ah 33) notes that because the food is forced in with pressure and is often dry and sharp, damage to the veshet is common and checking the veshet is difficult if not impossible; therefore, he was in favor of banning such force-feeding. Chochmas Adam (16:10) preferred to ban the gavage process because of the concern for treifos but agreed that if done, it can be kosher. In modern times, both Tzitz Eliezer (11:49, 11:55, 12:52) and Rav Ovadia Yosef (Yabia Omer 9, Yoreh De’ah 3) came out against foie gras and suggested that even those who permitted it in earlier generations might have been machmir today.